TravelStream™ news feed for member rpriaulx on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/rpriaulx en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Thu, 11 Jan 2007 04:04:09 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rpriaulx/travels_2006-07/1165309320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rpriaulx/travels_2006-07/1165309320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rpriaulx/travels_2006-07/1165309320/tpod.html Thu, 11 Jan 2007 04:04:09 -0500 Richard and Paul's Round The World Adventures 2006-2007

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London, United Kingdom

And finally after a frantic couple of months preparing for our big departure from London today we fly out on the start of our adventures to Singapore!
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Singapore, Singapore

After a long overnight flight from London we arrived in Singapore
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Singapore, Singapore

After
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rpriaulx/travels_2006-07/1168505280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rpriaulx/travels_2006-07/1168505280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rpriaulx/travels_2006-07/1168505280/tpod.html Thu, 11 Jan 2007 03:50:53 -0500 Richard and Paul's Round The World Adventures 2006-2007

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Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

We are just in transit from the islands on the west coast 'Koh Phi Phi' enroute back to Bangkok. Koh Phi Phi was absolutely stunning, definitely the most beautiful area I have been to so far! incredible white sand beaches set against dramatic limestone monoliths and jungles and it's round near where they filmed one of the James Bond films a few years back and of more recently the film called 'The Beach' Unfortunately Koh Phi Phi took the worst of the tsunami 2 years ago and it completely wiped out all the buildings there... it's really amazing how the locals have worked to rebuild their island and rebuild their lives after going through so much. building work goes on through the night and it really is heart wrenching to see just a tiny glimpse of what they've been through. We took a cruise a couple of days ago around the local islands and dive spots... went to 'The Beach' which was pretty rediculous.... will show you the photo's sometime! and then we spent most of the day snorkelling out on the coral with all those lovely fish (one cheeky little scamp(y) took a nip at my back when I turned and looked the other way) we saw some big sharks as well. A really good day but I left feeling a little sunburned and tired and ready for a nice cold Singha beer and some Chicken Penang Curry... as you can imagine, this country is really doing no favours to my wasteline, I'm going to come back home looking the size of pavarotti at this rate! (but without the beard or the voice of course!) Oh yeah we took a little detour into Burma the other day because our visa's were up in Thailand and we had to do the Visa run accross the border... Burma seemed a good bet as they only recently opened their border to foreigners and neither of us new what it was like... it turned into a real adventure, paying a man in a little Long tail boat down at the harbour to ride us down the river and into Burma.... landing on their shore was like going back in time by 50years or more.. everything was really just as it probably always has been - no shops or tourist attractions or hotels or the likes, they haven't yet geared up to the whole tourist money making machine and they live in really old open fronted shacks along the riverside and it has foreign smells and many market stalls selling strange wares (and Viagra!).... the only thing the locals were trying to sell me was Viagra!!... what are they trying to tell me?? Anyways like I mentioned we are in transit on our way up to bangkok for a couple of nights to sort out some Visa's for Lao and Cambodia and then we will head on up to North of the country before crossing over into Lao for the next leg of our adventures in a couple of weeks time.
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Ranong, Thailand

Well after spending over two weeks on Koh Phangan today was time to uproots and leave the island - destination Ranong.
Ranong is a small city on the border of Myanmar thus being our main reason for heading up here as our Thai Visa's are due up in the next few days and we need to get a new stamp in our passport for another 30days. This involved getting rudely awoken at 5.45am this morning by the alarm clock (a sound which I had all too happily forgotten about over the past month) and a hurried farewell breakfast of poached eggs and fruit salad prepared by our lovely host Mayo at White West Hut and then jumping onto a ferry boat back to the mainland. The sun was shining and the sea was calm and it was a really pleasant way to pass the opening hours of the morning. This was followed by lots tiresome waiting around in Suratthani port and then a rather long and broken bus journey up to Ranong although the scenery through the mountains and jungle was really stunning.
Arriving in Ranong at about 6pm we have checked in to a small Guest House called Kiwi Orchid we just took a quick walk through the town and ate some food in the local night market.
We are heading out early in the morning on a longtail boat to cross the border into Myanmar. Time for some sleep now but will update you on our adventures tomorrow.
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